with so much going on, the fiscal cliff, negotiating back and forth with the house trying to figure out how to avoid massive tax increases and spending cuts, why there? it's all politics. >> steve: one other note, the "wall street journal" says regarding right to work states, between 2000 and 2010, 5 million people moved from union states to right to work states and they have 23% higher rate of income growth per capita in right to work states. so things are thriving in the right to work states. there are 24 of them. 26 still are union states. >> gretchen: eric brought up an interesting point about why isn't the president staying in washington, because now it turns out that the fiscal cliff is actually closer than we thought. it was not coakley january 1 anymore. we've about to go off it any day now because apparently it takes a certain amount of days to actually draft any kind of legislation that they might come to an agreement on and so if you backtrack then from the end of the year and when congress is going to be going home for christmas and other holidays, then you really don't have